


Brief Candle Dream

by Mitch



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:10:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8518006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitch/pseuds/Mitch
Summary: Early in the series, Daniel contemplates how he plans to be done with the Stargate in a year. He dreams about Jack and what their relationship will be like on that anniversary date. Okay, by dreams I mean wet-dreams.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the rewatch on Spacemonkey. It's pretty darn easy to foreshadow things written for these early eps since I've seen the entire series and know what's ahead. We all know Daniel's not gonna be done in a year as he thought. Still, that was his mindset in these early eps!

Brief Candle Dream  
By Mitch

Allow me just a moment to revel in this Peloponnesian culture, will you please?

No? The universe, as always, comes slapping at my heels and tugging me away from what interests me. By the way, I can make a damned arrow and I can deliver a baby. As much as I admire Doctor Carter, she's a bit short-sighted in her views of those around her, as evidenced by her comments on our most recent mission. I must delve into her past. We're obviously tied together for many future missions, if not for a full year. I hope not a full year. I plan to be back on Abydos before a year has lapsed.

Now, I also know perfectly well what the woman intended when she offered Jack that cake. Jack had just made a comment about things being off and I misread his statement.

So I watched him eat the cake and I knew what the woman's intentions were, what the offering of such a delicacy was for. And then he offered some to me and not to Captain Carter and with my mouth gaping open I just reached out to take some. Now I'm in an absolute pickle! I can't admit I knew what Jack was being offered. I can't admit that somewhere in the back of my mind I knew what I was reaching for when I stretched out my hand to take his offering. I stayed silent for a bit, and then I tried to direct the conversation back to the local culture, then watched Jack being led off to the marriage dance. Yes, I knew. Guilt! I don't really care if he was excited by the dance or not. Don't care. I did make an absolutely pitiful attempt to stop him from going inside. I stood up. Captain Carter and Teal'c followed me to their feet and I gave in instantly when the citizens objected. Sat right back down.

In some cultures it's the offer of specific foods. In others it's the offer of a blanket, both physical necessities, you see. A goat, cattle, food, shelter, clothing. You see the common thread. This is my expertise. And I reached out to take what Jack offered. I certainly did.

So let's go forward in time a bit. Jack starts aging rapidly. Yes, I do have a father fixation, get attracted to father-figures. I do. Yes. And then Sam points out the cake again. I am very carefully remotely observant of her statement. Brilliantly helpful in a neutral way. That damned cake I reached for. The cake I almost had my fingers on. Jack offered it to me, you see. Jack offered it to me. He had no idea what he was doing, but I knew what I was reaching for. Jack is out of sorts. He says he's hung over but I see a change and I'm quite obviously not thinking clearly because my mind is still on the image of my fingers reaching out for that delicacy. 

I am guilty of passively allowing him to partake of the marriage cake, of being escorted off to a marriage bed. In retrospect of course, we can compare this experience with my being gifted with the tribal leader's daughter on Abydos and I took that gifting rather passively. Unlike Jack, though, I did refuse the sex. Make of it what you will. I did not have sex with her. I covered up my refusal on Abydos. To the leaders on Abydos, I extended thanks and then dropped that curtain, keeping the gifted woman, but not the sex. 

So my mindset when Jack was offered the cake was the same. Accept the gift and deal with the consequences later. I didn't realize the consequences would extend to him engaging in unprotected sex and the subsequent infection. 

So, allow me to put aside my inner turmoil and experience this corrupted Peloponnesian society. The goa'uld who presented himself as the god Pelops has created this place as an experiment. I am walking through a society that lives as such folks would today, if their society had been completely isolated from outside influences, and free of geographic hardships, weather turmoil and disease. They live beautifully, in seaside villas surrounded by every necessary resource. They advance not at all toward a mechanized civilization. They concentrate on artistic pursuits such as dance and song, and strive for nothing. 

It's often said that even art stagnates without conflict or strife. I see no advancement in painting or sculpture, yet I see refined water fountains, beautifully plotted gardens, walkways, leisure spots. No sports, I should add. The men do not hold contests. No one strives. No one explores.

There's an efficient textile industry that produces fine cloth, tapestries, upholstery. Furniture, food. All of it somehow gets done with absolutely no complicated machinery. This is only because they have natural resources at hand. And they have no curiosity, these contented people. These stagnant people with their stagnant culture. Non-explorers. I do not judge, I only observe and state observations, conclusions, facts.

It doesn't take me long to reach a point where I feel I have gained all knowledge I can from them. They were a helpful distraction that did not last long. Again, not judging, there's just little here to hold my interest.

My attention is back on Jack. I am watching him age and with each passing moment, I feel a fist squeezing my heart tighter and tighter. I feel like I've just met him and now I'm facing the possibility of losing him. That's how it has been all my life, with personal relationships. I barely met Doctor David Jordan at the Oriental Institute, just barely got to know him and then I was loading a suitcase in a cab and leaving, and not by choice, I will add. Relationship after relationship ends and not by my choice. 

I have the opposite of an abandonment issue. People don't abandon me. I leave them. Perhaps I do that before they get the chance to abandon me, as my parents did when I was eight? Am I sabotaging all personal relationships by being, frankly, an ass?

Moving rapidly ahead in time now, I feel positively sick! I'm losing Jack. When General Hammond makes some kind of command that I be logical I blow up! I yell at him in the briefing room. Defiantly yelling "Sir" instead of "ass" is still defiantly yelling at a general. I manage to hold it together long enough to make a video message with Sam and Teal'c. We send it off to Jack. I am absolutely sick.

A very short time passes. We get a message from Jack and my heart starts beating again. Sam, Captain Carter, talks it through with him. We're confident he'll return to normal. 

We are back at the SGC and Jack has been resting in the infirmary for a few days. I'm being a recluse, keeping myself locked in this little space the general has designated as my office. I'm turning it into a lab of sorts. Sufficient shelves are now attached firmly to two walls. I have a decent lab table and an excellent computer. I need another, larger photo stand. The one provided doesn't have a large enough illumination area for some of the artifacts we've gathered. As I told Good Father, I could be away from Abydos for a year, going on missions with Jack. What will it be like between Jack and myself in a year?

I almost lost Jack. 

In a year I am going to be significantly more attached to him. When I was here, and he was with the Argosians I felt the loss growing into a panic.

One year from the day he came back to Abydos get me, how will I feel about him? How will things be between us? I”m not ready to admit that I can't lose him again. But I know I can't.

~ 

Alone in his dark apartment, Daniel rolled onto his back and kicked at the thin sheet. Sweat dotted his brow. He thrashed onto his side and drifted to sleep again, his closed journal and capped pen at his side. Dreams took him far away and almost a year into the future.

The sun was high over the Abydonian pyramid. No goa'uld ship perched over its lofty peak, only bare, blue sky. Daniel stepped from the shadowed entrance, Jack close at his heels. Daniel was dressed in the robes he'd worn on his departure a year ago, Jack in green cammo and sunglasses. Sam and Teal'c stayed inside.

"Kasuf will be in the village, Jack. It's high noon. Time for the locals to rest in the shade."

Jack pointed ahead and Daniel spared him a wan smile before setting off on the hot trek. Sand shifted beneath his booted feet and wind whipped through the folds of fabric. Sweat and layered robes, cooled by the breeze had kept Bedouin desert dwellers comfortable for centuries on Earth. And so such did here. Daniel set a swift pace, but was mindful of Jack's less appropriate attire. He glanced at him frequently, but Jack's expression was unreadable behind the dark glasses and shaded by the booney hat.

"I'm trying to find the right words to tell Sha're's father that I haven't recovered her yet, that we're still searching among the stars for her."

Jack lengthened his stride until he was beside Daniel. "The words will come to you."

Daniel appreciated the confidence the man had in him. Jack and he communicated with ease and efficiency. That ease hadn't existed in their early missions. But in the dream-spun intervening twelve months and missions they'd coalesced into an efficient duo. And during down-time. Off missions. At home, Jack's home on weekends of time spent on that back deck, by the cooker, in the kitchen or playing chess in the living room, they'd formed a dream-spun bond. 

"I might have a problem finding the right words." Daniel shuffled in the sand. He looked back at Jack and suddenly his perspective, as often occurs in dreams, shifted. Jack was by his side, matching him stride for stride. "I might have difficulty explaining to Kasuf."

"Explaining how things are for you now? You haven't found her. You have tried, so there's no need to apologize to him." The sun glinted off Jack's very dark lenses and off his white teeth. He was giving Daniel one of his reassuring smiles that spoke of confidence and genuine friendship.

"I might have a need to apologize," Daniel objected in a soft tone. He dipped is head and then stopped. The desert heat swirled around the two men, embracing them in a column of air-born sand, of tugging breezes and brightness. The wind had no sound. He could hear Jack's breathing. "I should probably apologize for my heart." He brought his steady gaze up to Jack. 

The Jack in his dream was wise and also stunningly open in his emotional expression. "The heart wants what the heart wants." He raised a hand and cupped Daniel's cheek. 

Daniel stepped closer and covered Jack's hand with his own, increasing the intimate touch. To their left a small tent came into focus. It was of the typical desert dweller style, low, sloping sides, dark cloth and tied down to handle unfettered winds.

As if moved by their very glance at the tent, the two were suddenly inside and Daniel sank to a pile of cushions on top of overlapping rugs. Jack knelt by him and he reached up to draw the man into intimate contact again. Abydonian wind whistled through the ropes outside and fluttered the fabric surrounding them. The wind sound that had been absent before was now a shushing white noise that masked out low sounds of the two bodies moving.

Daniel's robes slipped away and Jack's desert gear did the same. Hands slid across bare skin, with no sound other than that of wind. Daniel looked into Jack's brown eyes and saw more than love. He saw the friendship and companionship he'd longed for all his adult life. Jack would not leave him.

"I have no fear of abandonment with you. It won't be you who leaves me."

"Never would," Jack whispered just before his lips brushed Daniel's. "Won't in all the years to come. We'll have many more than just this one together."

"A promise I can believe." Daniel kissed him. The kiss wasn't surprising. They'd been kissing for months, hadn't they? And making love. Yes, for many months on Earth. They'd built from tentative touches to naked intimacy. That had been back on Earth, hadn't it? Not on the dream-scape of distant planets. On Earth in a bedroom.

Deep in his dream, Daniel rolled over and his questing hand was met with the smooth, cool sheets of his Colorado bed. They'd taken dream-flight across constellations. Jack's dark eyes twinkled in the dim bedroom of the third story apartment. "Jack?"

"Many more years than just this one. Stop feeling guilty for loving me."

Daniel moved as Jack urged him, onto his back, bare with the sheet having been pushed onto the floor along with the boxers he'd been sleeping in. He'd imagined many times that Jack always kicked off the sheet and disdained blankets. That's how their bed would be. Messy, no blanket, hardly a sheet in sight. Jack kissed his throat and Daniel arched his head back. "Feeling guilty because I will need to explain to Kasuf." They made love in his apartment, in Jack's home. In moments of doubt, though, his dreams took him to the apartment. The doubt passed quickly.

He was back where the intimacy of the dream started. The desert wind found a way into the tent and beneath his back, the wool pillows and cushions cradled him. Grit in the corner of his left eye caused him to tear up. Daniel wiped at it and Jack, laying over his chest, kissed his fingers. The gentleness warmed his heart. He drew up one leg, sliding his foot along a thick, woolen carpet. Black cloth stretched above the two nude men.

"We'll explain to Kasuf together," the Colonel said. "That we didn't mean any insult to his daughter. That you respect her. Always have. It's just something we'll have to work through with him. Cultural differences and all that. I think the old guy will understand."

Daniel nodded. "I'll still feel guilty, though. And I'll love you forever."

Jack kissed his parted lips, tongue wet and warm, mouth hot and breath gusting before he moved to whisper in Daniel's ear. "Love you forever too. Daniel, love you forever."

Jack directed the sex and Daniel wondered if this was how it would always be between them. Jack's chest had fine, curling hair. He had a smattering of the same below his navel leading down to his groin. There, the hair was thicker and longer, obscuring the base of his cock. The sac that held two orbs was also covered in hair and Daniel rolled the man back far enough to push fingertips through the short strands. Jack gasped in appreciation of the touch and Daniel increased his probing. There was more, going in a line backward and as he tried to sit up to explore there, Jack chuckled.

Daniel found himself flat on his back again, Jack kneeling between his thighs. Daniel's cock was at attention, hard and curved slightly to his left as it did when erect. His balls were tight up against his body. His state of arousal was shocking and possibly, so slightly, embarrassing. 

"My turn."

"Wait," Daniel objected. "Have I had my turn yet?" He certainly hadn't come. He'd intended to, hadn't he? He was leaking precum. It was puddling by his navel. 

Jack didn't answer him. He was aware of his legs in the air and, as happens in dreams, from across the tent, could see Jack preparing to penetrate him.

"Penetrate." The word echoed out in a dark, Colorado apartment. A flash of doubt had pulled Daniel's dream setting home to his apartment. Daniel's sleeping form arched on the bed, groin forward as he rolled from his side onto his stomach. The sheet absorbed his clear precum, the sweet nectar of sexual desire.

Jack penetrated him and Daniel gripped the pillow. His pen rolled off the edge of the bed. The journal joined the pen.

"Jack." He pushed against the sheet. "Jack." His body opened for Jack, for the startling thickness, heaviness of the man's cock. Jack pushed deep into him, stretching the ring and causing a sweet and sudden pain that had him sweating. Jack moved, angling himself so the head of his cock hit Daniel's prostate. He rocked his hips to give Jack an easier stroke in and out. Jack must have appreciated the change because he set up a punishing set of three hard thrusts and a long pause, over and over. Daniel ached for him to stop the pauses and just continue to fuck deep. He said words to that effect and felt Jack bite the back of his neck. Jack was sweating too, he knew, because drops of moisture hit his shoulder. Jack's breathing was growing ragged. He was approaching release too.

"More," he was sure he begged. "More, Jack." He got deeper strokes, past where Jack had been earlier and the fullness, the weight inside him was fantastic. He'd come soon!

"Love you forever," the dreamed, wavering form whispered in his ear, causing him to find release.

Daniel startled awake. The bed was messed. He drew away from the dampness, a string of white stretching from the cloth to the slit in the head of his cock until it broke and sank in a glob beside the other three on the bedsheet. Daniel sighed and clicked on the lamp. A used tissue was on the bedside table. He pulled the tissue open enough to catch at the drop oozing out and went to the bathroom. With haste, he grabbed a towel, dabbed properly at himself and returned to strip the fitted sheet off the bed before his cum could soak through to the mattress pad. Too late. He pulled the pad off too and dumped the offending items in the bathtub to be dealt with in the morning. A flat sheet spread on the bare mattress, a pair of boxers and a light blanket had him ready to go back to sleep.

Dawn came through the parted curtains, not through a desert tent flap on Abydos. Daniel smiled and stretched. His glasses were on the table, but no tissues, no journal. He sat on the side of the bed and retrieved the journal, the pen and an old tissue. Then he moved to the foot of the bed and was surprised to see the top sheet there. The smile returned. A pair of boxers were twisted in the sheet. He'd kicked those off in his dream. Jack hadn't removed them. Not this time. Not in the dream or in reality. Yet.

The act would probably come first in a dream, but some day, it would come in reality. He fished them from the floor and the sheet too. Laundry had to be started before he left for the mountain complex. "Wet dream." He shook his head, the smile still firmly in place. "First, the dream act. But one day we'll make love and I'll be awake when Jack has an orgasm."

A shower after he loaded the washer was in order. He washed away the remains of his release and that had him thinking about Jack's hair again. He'd wanted to explore the entire extent of it, that dark, curly stuff that trailed behind his balls. And Jack had stopped him and taken charge of their love-making. Typical of Jack's personality. "Typical," he told the tile walls. "And love forever. He said love forever. And since it was my dream, I've got that on my mind and I want it. I want Jack." He soaped the washcloth but first, gingerly touched his bottom and was surprised for a moment that it wasn't tender, swollen. Right. There'd be no cum of Jack's to clean out, no tenderness to be concerned about today. He soaped himself and rinsed, feeling a little regret, a little disappointment. "Some day, though," he said with a little smile.

The mirror studied him as he shaved. Daniel eyed it and asked, "That guilt? It'll be there in a year. We're going to have a lot of sex, Jack and I. It's not going to stop when I find her. Oh? Jack and I have something more than sex? Yes. I know. Love. I am devoted to Sha're. So I need to talk to Kasuf. In that year I promised him, I'll be back there and I'm going to have a very difficult conversation. I won't avoid it, though. Typical of me, you know. I don't avoid difficult things. I'm going to have to explain to Kasuf that the man who came to Abydos with me, the one who was at my side before his daughter…well, he'll understand. When he gave her to me as a gift it wasn't even as a wife, first wife, or any other. His expectation was that I take her as a possession. It's not his expectation I have guilt over, but my own and how Kasuf will relate to me in the future. It'll be a difficult talk but one I'll be better for having. And she knows my heart already.”

Dressed and ready for the day, his journal tucked in his satchel, Daniel closed the apartment door. He took with him the fresh feeling of making love with Jack in that apartment, in a tent on Abydos, in his heart. He took with him the certainty that Jack would never abandon him, nor he Jack. Of all the tugs and pulls the universe could inflict on the two, this certainty had existed in the back of his mind since their time battling Ra. Jack and he had bonded on a level that Daniel could not yet clearly define, but bonded, they certainly were. And he was very happy about that!

end


End file.
